


How To Build A Boy

by likethenight



Series: Writers' Month 2020 [13]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Memories, Musicians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25903195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethenight/pseuds/likethenight
Summary: Hal thinks about how much Jack has changed over the long years he's known him. Which is...a Lot.Ficlet written for Writers' Month 2020, day 14, prompt "metamorphosis".
Relationships: Hal Peacock (Original Character)/Jack Outlaw | Jack McQueen (Original Character), Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Writers' Month 2020 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867720
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	How To Build A Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Hal and Jack are the main characters from a novel I've been writing for a very long time entitled _Two of a Kind_. They are both ex-street-kid musicians who spend the course of the novel very slowly realising that they are actually everything in the world to each other (they are the archetypal slow-burn idiots in love). Hal has a daughter, Natalie, who lives with her mother Anita. Jack is - well. Jack is hard to explain but he is very damaged, very unsocialised, and also incredibly grumpy; meanwhile Hal is much calmer, but still rather damaged. They each play guitar in bands, Hal in one and Jack in another. By the point that this ficlet takes place, they have been living together in an established relationship for some time, and Hal has been helping him adjust to dealing with people, something at which Jack has never had much experience, for various reasons. Part of this has involved finagling Jack into taking Natalie to the crochet club hosted by Hal's grandmother, at which all Hal's grandmother's friends promptly adopted Jack as an honorary grandson, much to his bewilderment (and the author's amusement).
> 
> Hal and Jack also appear in [this pair of related ficlets](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25672297), and there will be more featuring these two during the month!

Sometimes I think about how much Jack has changed since I first met him. That first time we met, he was a skinny little street kid, no older than fourteen, all spikes and sharp edges and attitude; he delighted in being a little shit to everyone he met, including me, and I’m still not entirely sure how we ended up becoming friends. I don’t know why I put up with him back then, except that maybe I think I saw through his obnoxiousness, even then. I think I saw his vulnerability without even quite realising it, and I recognised it for the same thing I never admitted to myself that I felt. 

We grew up, or at least I did, and we grew apart for a bit, but Jack never quite lost that obnoxious spikiness. Now I think it’s because he actually didn’t know how to get close to anyone; I think it’s a fluke that he allowed himself to get close to me all that time ago, and I don’t think he knew he was doing it. 

When we ran back into each other again, he was still obnoxious, still sharp edges and spikes and attitude, only even more so, because by that time he was the guitarist in a punk band and it went with the territory. We bounced around each other for years, in and out of each other’s lives, and one of the many reasons I never quite felt I could do anything about what I thought we could be to each other, was that he had so many sharp edges and broken bits by that time, and I was fragile enough myself that I knew he’d break me in pieces without even trying.

But somehow, eventually - and it took a fuck of a long time - we managed to get together. Jack confessed to me some of the reasons why he was how he was, and very slowly he learned to trust me, a little, to let me close, a little, and I learned to trust him. Mostly, I learned to trust him not to get freaked out and cut and run, but that was only after he did it to me, twice, and I laid down the law to him, told him that I couldn’t cope with him doing that to me without warning any more. Also, he’d met my little girl Natalie by the second time he did it, and she’d been heartbroken, because she adored him from the moment she met him, even though he was grumpy and spiky and said a lot of bad words.

After that, I think he made a conscious decision to try and become an actual functioning human being. He’d had hardly any experience being around people at all, he’d pretty much never met any women other than his mother, and she hadn’t been up to much. And he had absolutely no idea how to behave around kids, but Natalie is a determined little thing, and she just marched right in and taught him. With the rest of it, we worked through it bit by bit. I got him being nice to the checkout staff in the supermarket, as practice for dealing with people, and I packed him off to take Natalie to my grandmother’s crochet club; that one involved some subterfuge, because he’d never have agreed to it unless he thought he had no choice, and by all accounts he was thoroughly bewildered but he had a lovely time, and came away from it with several adopted grandmas. So he’s learning how to deal with children, he’s learning how to deal with women, he’s learning how to deal with people. And he’s learning how to deal with me - and I’m learning how to handle him. I’ve had a lot of practice, over the years, but I think we’re actually getting quite good at it. He needles me, I try my best to keep calm, he freaks out at something tiny or he finds something he has no idea how to handle, and I talk him down, sort him out, help him understand what’s going on. 

And in return, he handles my issues, my insecurities, my problems, and he makes me laugh and he tells me I’m an idiot, and then I realise that all right, maybe that’s the issue after all, and he’s strong for me as well as himself, just like I’m strong for him as well as for me. We’d have to be, with what we’ve each been through, but Jack is stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. He’s been through hell, more than I know or can imagine, and yet he’s still here, putting himself together piece by piece, and becoming an actual functioning human being. He’s great with Natalie and she adores him, and he’s learning to get on with my friends, my bandmates, my brother. And to me - well, to me he’s the love of my life, and I am so proud of what he’s made of himself. Despite everything, he’s still standing and he’s decided he wants to be with me, for good, and that’s more than I could ever have expected, that first day out on the streets.


End file.
